Table 7.

Suggested functions of a blockchain-based hospital information exchange (HIE) system.

Group	Quotes
Patients	“Those who really need this service are my parents and they have dementia. It may not always be the right decision to give authorization for sharing information to oneself. Sometimes it’s better to ask for consent from the guardian.” “My elderly patients are scared of visiting hospitals alone. It’ll be great if I have the authorization to control my parents’ information and I won’t have to visit the hospital as often.” “Information on rare blood type, allergies, and organ donors should be stored and shared whenever needed.” “I wanted to participate in clinical trials, but no information was available. I wish someone would tell me.” “Technically I get to control my own information, but doctors should be able to look up my information in an emergency. If I get into an accident overseas and become unconscious, it’ll be helpful if my guardian or doctors could see my information.”
Physicians	“Recruiting clinical trial participants is very difficult, and I think that will be most useful when using blockchain in health care. Recruiting participants appropriate for each stage and conducting follow up are the hardest parts.” “Currently, recruiting patients for clinical trials is done by rule of thumb. Gender or age distribution is not considered most of the time. It’ll be much more convenient and effective if we can recruit participants by looking up patient information using blockchain.” “Because we get to see patients very briefly, there has to be a way of clearly showing only the information we need. For example, highlighting only the abnormal values or generating graphs of data for which the changes need observation.”
Developers	“Patient data will be generated from so many places. Who will be responsible for managing such a vast amount of data? It’ll be most convenient if the data are stored in the central location at the national level, but it’s not possible for the central government to manage PGHD [patient-generated health data]. It’s more efficient to store metadata in the central location, and the data itself should be saved on users’ mobile phone or other storage media.” “I think the data should be distributed for storage, and a system that manages the history data in the central location to enable searching is needed.”